One earner families should be the ideal - people should structure their lifestyles so they CAN live on one income. The very idea that two incomes are needed shows the couple is spending more than the need to. Peak oil will force this, as jobs get more difficult to find in a contracting economy.

Many American women are attracted to a man’s income, and without that, he is seen as a parasite. For the sexes to be truly equal, we have to get past this.

DK

As an attorney with two kids, I bought the whole “line.”

What is not publicized is how many women quit law to raise children. My law school class was 51% women. I bet only 20% still practice law. (I hear this is causing a shortage in medicine too.)

Having children made being home timely a priority for me. My children ran to me each evening saying, “why couldn’t you come home earlier mommy?”

Leaving the office “on time” cost me promotion/advancement in my field. Work was a very negative experience for me when my children needed me most. I worked through lunch to get work completed. I was judged a “slacker” by male colleagues who worked late (but took long lunches each day.) My career will never catch up from 10 years of those judgments.

I continued working because of debt and health insurance. I longed to put my time and effort into my most-important-life’s-work, my children.

I now see that Americans have such poor health because of all the additives in our food because working moms are too tired to cook. We turned over parenting to television so that we can find time to “get the laundry done.” Clearly society is degrading under this system.

The old ways were a lot smarter than I realized.

Thank you for putting it all together!

I am constantly amazed at the sheer volumes of your posts, but never find them dull or verbose.

Delicious! Keep them coming… I check in every week!

Almostselfsufficient.blogspot.com

P.S. I love to cook but my wife can’t stand me in the kitchen… so I have been relegated to the barn for stall duty. Our duties have devolved back to the traditional, but when you live on a farm… that is just the way it is.

Really good essay!! My husband and I wrestled with this subject alot when we decided to have a child. So even though I made more money, I stayed home BECAUSE I wanted to. However, my husband has also made our family a priority and takes some (mostly good natured) flak from his co-workers because he leaves on time, doesn’t habitually work OT, refuses to carry a cell phone as he doesn’t want to be constantly “on call.” So although we’ve adopted traditional gender roles (I stay home, clean, cook, shop, and take care of the kid while DH works for money), we’re happy with it and it works for us.

Laura in So Cal

This is a hard subject with no universal answers, only individual ones.

I would just say one thing - I don’t actually think that marriage *is* a lot of work. Or rather, when it works, it isn’t. Or it is the kind of work that doubles up as fun, at least in my life. I was married once to the wrong man - he was a wonderful guy, and we’re still good friends, and that *was* a lot of work. But being married to the right partner is a lot of fun and not much work at all. I’m not saying anyone should get married if they don’t want to, but I think not getting married because it is too much work closes off the option of even a partnership that might not be so much. And if you wanted it (and I’m not suggesting there’s any reason you should - just some people do), I’d wish that for you.

Sharon

And yet, I know that if I stopped working my footprint would drop, not because of the take out meals or the clothes or all the other things that are often cited, but the drive to work. (And if I didn’t start homeschooling, I’d have sooooo much time to get my house in order before TEOTWAWKI.) And, also, I would have more time to garden, put up food, spead the word…start a garden at my parents, the list goes on and on…

I actually have no interest in marriage (though I young, sexy shovel serf would make my life easier and more interesting) becuase I can’t imagine trying to cram one more relationship into my life. Friends, yes, because you don’t have to work at friendship as hard and rentless as you do at marriage, but not a life partner.

Where I’m trying to go with this, it that, I agree that life in America in so structed around having to have a job (or someone in the household with a job that makes enought to support a family), that dropping out of this is a risk that a lot of people, like me, can’t take.

We may be forced out of it by PO, though.

I hoping that my transfer will come through, I can start walking to work.

MEA

I find it very ironic, and bitter to be honest, that if I go out and care for someone else’s child, it will be considered ‘work’ but if I stay home and care for my own, it is not.

This is not a choice I make easily or gladly. It will raise our carbon footprint, it will put heavy strains on our family. But this is the way America is structured currently - we give lip service to a mom’s work being ‘the most important’ but the culture is utterly unwilling to support the reality of it.